Back in 1981 Columbia Pictures released an Ivan Reitman film called Stripes which starred Bill Murray and Harold Ramis. The movie was about a couple of guys who had less than stellar lives, and after seeing an Army recruitment poster with the tagline “Be All You Can Be” they decided to join up hoping to improve their lot. Hijinks ensue. Murray and Ramis stumble their way through basic training, but ultimately impress a general at graduation who picks them to work on his secret EM-50 project in Italy.

The EM-50 is a fictional military project for an “Urban Assault Vehicle” based on a 1976 GMC Motorhome Palm Beach model. In the movie it’s all tricked out with machine guns, flame throwers, rocket launchers, armor, and a communications and navigation center. Murray and Ramis, plus girlfriends, wander into Czechoslovakia by accident and when their platoon tries to rescue them and are captured by the Russians, the EM-50 armed duo comes to the rescue to much fanfare and acclaim.

Who knew a GMC Motorhome could do so much? The funny thing is, the GMC Motorhome is the only purpose-built motorhome ever built by a major car and truck manufacturer alongside their regular line of vehicles. Most other Motorhomes are either built by specific recreational vehicle manufacturers or converted from pre-existing designs by third parties. The GMC Motorhome was a design innovator by not only being a front wheel drive RV, but also featuring dual axle rear wheels. Over 12,000 of these Motorhomes were ultimately built between 1973 and 1978, and there are an estimated 9000 still on the road! Even after a 37 year gap since they were in production, their fuel efficiency compared to other RV’s of similar size and weight has kept them competitive. They came in either 23 or 26 foot lengths and have been restored and repurposed over the years until they’ve been described as that “26-foot, 12,000-pound antique hot rod with plumbing.”

GMC first came into existence back in 1908, but it didn’t start producing trucks until the next year, 1909, when they become one of the first manufacturers to build commercial heavy trucks to compete with the current-day horse-drawn freight and railroads. Production numbers weren’t very high though, with total production of trucks only numbering 372 in 1912 for example. Of course the road infrastructure of the United States at that time was nothing like what we have these days, and internal-combustion powered vehicles were still proving themselves as motor cars were still viewed as a luxury item…the “Everyman’s” Model T hadn’t quite caused the nation to be car crazy just yet. As an example of the condition of the road system in the United States, it took 30 days for a GMC Truck to travel from Seattle to new York City in 1916, whereas a GMC Truck only took 5 days to cross the country from San Francisco to New York ten years later in 1926! Improvements in engines, fuel availability, as well as expansions in services and availability of parts play a part in the reduction of time taken to cross the country, true, but a more efficient road network is the main factor.

Speaking of 1916, the US Army was chasing the Mexican bandit Pancho Villa and for the first time in it’s history it was using trucks. GMC Trucks. 1915 Model 15 3/4 ton GMC Trucks to be more precise.  The Army went over 400 miles into Mexico in the hunt for Villa, and the trucks operated in incredibly rough conditions throughout the state of Chihuahua. The area of Chihuahua the GMC’s were operating in is covered in rolling dunes, mountains, desert plains, with little-to-no actual roads, just wagon tracks and horse paths. Many of those early vehicles succumbed to the terrain and were abandoned, but they taught the US Army, and Americans in general, the value of a solid 4 wheeled load-carrying vehicle thus helping create the legend of the American Truck

If you were above the age of 10 at the end of the eighties and beginning of the nineties you’ll probably remember the mini-truck/sport truck trend. The roads and high school parking lots were littered with lil’ tiny dropped pickups with ground effects and speakers blaring out Dallas’s own Vanilla Ice, or Pantera depending on your neighborhood. Well for ONE year only, GM decided to drop their own sport truck on the market and in 1991 introduced the Syclone.

Now the Syclone wasn’t your average little truck, it was a turbo-charged V6 powered BEAST that could go 0-60 in 5.3 seconds! This truck was available in the traditional Henry Ford paint scheme of “any color you want, as long as that color is black” and featured all wheel drive and that V6 pumped 280hp and 360 foot pounds of torque through a Corvette transmission. This truck was so hot, Car and Driver Magazine sponsored a drag race between the Syclone and a Ferrari 348ts! You read that correctly. They wanted to race an under $30k American pickup truck vs Italy’s finest $120,000+ heart-thumping-red painted, four wheeled sex machine.

And the pickup truck WON.

For real. The poor Ferrari driver got pretty familiar with the Syclone’s tailgate because he never even saw the Syclone from any other angle than from behind. According to the Sept 1991 Car and Driver magazine article on the race, the Ferrari demanded a rematch. Pickup said, “Nope”.

Then the pickup went on to beat the Ferrari at braking by coming to a full stop from 70mph in 183′ which was 4′ shorter than the Ferrari!

It should be pointed out in the spirit of full disclosure that the Ferrari does eat the Syclone’s lunch AFTER the 1/4 mile with a top speed of 166 mph vs the Syclone’s upper limit of 126 mph, and above 80 mph the Syclone’s pickup truck shape starts costing it speed. It’s the old story, a fast truck ain’t much but a streamlined brick…but this brick beat a Ferrari where it counts to us Americans: in “the traffic light Grand Prix” – to quote C&D Magazine.

If you have ever seen ANY movie about World War Two from the propaganda “buy more bonds” flicks of the actual war years all the way to Brad Pitt’s movie “Fury”, you have seen at least one GMC CCKW truck. The original famous “Deuce-And-A-Half” (2 1/2 ton) workhorse truck of the US Army.

As the first truly mobile modern war, the Second World War armies were absolutely dependent on movement and supply. With the frontlines never very static for too long, the troops and gear had to be moved from place to place with a modicum of speed. Believe it or not, the German Army was still largely horsedrawn, and the Italians loaded gear on the backs of donkeys, but the US Army’s donkeys were largely built by GMC.

By war’s end GMC had produced over half a million of the Deuce-And-A-Half in a number of variants, from specialized radio vehicles to fire engines, flatbeds, anti-aircraft vehicles, and even as mobile dental vans. The weird designation “CCKW” can be decoded as: C = designed in 1941, C = conventional cab, K = all wheel drive, and W = dual rear axle. They were powered by the GMC 270, which was a 91hp straight six which drove all six wheels up to a whopping 45mph which when you’re fighting in Europe is a better sounding 72km/h!

The legendary GMC truck served in both WWII and Korea, and played a huge role in the victory of the Allies in Europe. After the invasion of Normandy, these trucks formed what was called the “Red Ball Express” and kept the troops supplied with whatever materials were dumped on the beaches. Without a vehicle as hardy, as easily modifiable as the GMC CCKW, we would have had a very hard time in dislodging the Nazis from Europe.

These days you still see a fair number of these venerable old trucks in pastures or parked behind rural fire depts, some are still in use as water tenders and logging trucks, while others (pictured above) are being lovingly restored to their former glory.